


Chalk Box Ice Cream Cafe

by pybiah



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Human, First Meetings, Fluff, Humanstuck, Ice Cream, M/M, What more can I say, also the word count is the year and that makes me very happy, its cute and theres ice cream
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-09-28
Updated: 2018-10-21
Packaged: 2019-01-06 14:20:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,449
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12213015
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pybiah/pseuds/pybiah
Summary: The door creaks open and you lay your eyes on the most bedraggled looking twenty-something you have ever seen, who has just marched his ass into an Ice Cream Cafe at half eleven at night. Who even does that.





	1. Apple Snout Zigzag

You tap your fingers on the slightly sticky wooden counter as you wipe it down with a tartan cloth. It's the only sound in the empty room apart from the relentless drumming of the rain on the thin windows, the dreary sound promising you a soaking walk home. You glance at the bright red neon clock in the corner of the room. Half past eleven. Only thirty minutes to go, you tell yourself. You can do another thirty minutes, you reason, stifling a yawn into your sleeve. Working shifts late at night is hard, it is hard and nobody understands.

You'd been hesitant when applying for the job. Customer service and retail crap you can deal with, difficult as the general public may be, but who the fuck wants to work until midnight on a Saturday, let alone in a tiny ice cream shop tucked away down some always-overlooked side street? Pretty much nobody, that's who.

You had applied anyway. You need something to pay your bills with, and work experience is always a good thing, right? Besides, it's not so bad; your boss is a laugh and you get to eat the less requested ice-cream flavours because nobody else will if you don't. People say that working in an ice cream shop puts you off the wares because you're around it so much that it makes you sick of it, which you can say is absolute bullshit. Nothing could ever put you off ice cream. Being able to eat it is basically the only perk of the job. The only downside to eating the stock is that if you finish it off, you have to buy a new tub. Fair, but annoying, especially at the rate you go through it, which can't be even remotely healthy.

You realise you've been wiping the same spot on the counter for a good three minutes, and move onto another section.

The door opens with a creak, scaring you half to death, and you fumble and drop the spray cleaner you were using. It drops onto the floor with a clatter. Letting out a heavy breath, you pull yourself up, using the counter as leverage. The outdated customer notice chime dings, somewhat belatedly, as you lay your eyes on the most bedraggled looking twenty-something you have ever seen.

He's soaked. Not the caught-in-an-impromptu-shower-without-an-umbrella kind of soaked, not even the got-splashed-by-that-one-driver-who-went-through-the-puddle-like-a-massive-douchebag kind.

This is more like the rode-all-42-rides-in-a-water-park-fully-clothed-then-did-twenty-laps-in-an-olympic-swimming-pool kind of fucking soaked.

You blink at him.

He walks over, shoes squelching, and takes a seat on one of the bar stools. You ignore his watery footprints on the floor you just mopped, and stand up.

“Uh,” you begin, intelligently, “Can I get you anything?”

He pulls down the hood of his jacket and runs a hand through his mop of dark hair, which is somehow also soaking wet despite his coat, then clears his throat.

“Yeah,” he says, “The biggest sundae you can make without defying the laws of physics, with every single topping in the goddamn cupboard.” His voice is rough, and strangely melodic. Like dark chocolate and freshly ground coffee or something equally pretentious and poetic. You pretend you didn't just think that.

Wait, hang on.

“Everything?” you ask, slightly incredulously.

He stops taking off his coat and makes direct eye contact with you, somehow seeming to find your pupils even behind your mirrored shades.

“Did I fucking stutter? Yes, everything. Whipped cream, chocolate sauce, those tiny-ass sprinkly bits and even those thin papery things that like to think they're biscuits but are actually toilet paper in disguise.”

“Wafers.” You supply.

He reminds you of yourself, in a weird way; the same problem with rambling, but his seem to lean towards angry ranting with a helping of colourful language. It's strangely endearing.

“What the shit ever," He says, gesturing widely and spraying you with water droplets in the process, "I am so past caring. I am so fucking far past it that it is a faded dot in the distance far behind me as I ride the fuckoff train to kissmyassville.”

You snort as you reach over to the fridge to get the ice cream, deciding that you like this dude. It has nothing to do with his intense stare and the wet hair clinging to his smooth dark skin-

Yeah, stopping that train of thought right there, thanks.

“What flavours?” you ask, over your shoulder, as you head over to the walk in freezer. Why the stupid place has a room sized industrial fridge is still completely beyond you - you need the space to store all the ice cream you own, sure, but you hardly ever get any customers, so it's completely pointless owning all this goddamn stuff in the fist place.

You think maybe your boss, Terezi, opened the shop just so she could put all her weird-ass homemade stuff on the menu in the hopes that some poor, unsuspecting individual will order it because the name sounds cute. Does she even taste-test the crap she makes? Probably not, seeing as she's still standing.

“Do you have any banana?” he replies. You pause, tapping your fingers against the closed door. You ran out of banana a week ago. It's surprisingly popular considering you can almost never find it in any other ice cream shops, and you've been subjected to much nagging to buy another tub to replace the empty one. Oops.

“No." you say, slightly guiltily "But we have blue lagoon and these other weird-ass flavours that nobody ever orders. I have no idea why Terezi bothers to buy or make most of them. Maybe she thinks that some day little Timmy is going to waltz into the shop and ask for 'one sundae with berrybreath and cinammonwhiff swirl', but I, a sane person, am sure that the chances of that happening is about as likely as me ever trying to tightrope walk across Niagara Falls. Anyway, what do you want that isn't banana?”

“will you tightrope walk across Niagara Falls for me if I order berrysneeze and cinnamonstink swirl?” he asks, and you can hear a smirk in his voice.

You turn to face him, leaning against the cool door behind you.

“Whilst I'm sure that would be amazing, and you'd love to see me outperform even the greatest circus workers at their craft, do you really think it's worth having to eat whatever the fuck that ice cream is made of? the name might sound vaguely appetising, but I've had enough run-ins with Terezi's home-made crap to know that blindly - uh, excuse the shitty pun - leaping into a taste-test is a certified Bad Idea.” You say.

He rests his elbows on the table and plonks his chin onto his hands, looking thoughtful. “I'm feeling miserable, extremely bored, and curious as to what bizarre concoctions are sitting in that freezer, and as a result, I've had the most appalling and unappetising idea: you go in there and choose the weirdest flavours you can find so I can focus on my taste buds being brutally massacred instead of contemplating how I managed to sink this low in life.”

You hike an eyebrow up over your glasses and send him a look.

"You sure about that? Like, really sure?" You ask, drawing out the e sound unnecessarily. You wouldn't want him to sue because he melted off his tongue with one of Terezi's mystery batches.

He closes his eyes and half shrugs. "Yeah, I'm sure. God, you're making this sound like I'm volunteering myself for some brutal human sacrifice involving violent dismemberment and copious quantities of concentrated hydrochloric acid."

You yank open the door and say "You'd be surprised." He huffs out a laugh as you venture into the icy hell that is the freezer.

It's chock full of boxes, some labelled, some not. You dig around in the corner to find the most obscure ones possible. You can hear the guy moving around in the main room as you choose, and you hope he isn't robbing the cash register or stealing chairs or something. He doesn't seem like that kind of person but man, Terezi would be pissed, she's only had this shop for a month and a half. Actually, that adds to the mystery of why so much ice cream has accumulated.

There are many mysteries surrounding the Chalk Box Ice Cream Cafe. Why does it have such a weird name? Why does Terezi churn out such vast amounts of ice cream? How? Where does she have the kit? Or does she make it in her bathtub? Where the fuck does all the cherry ice cream disappear to that isn't your stomach? What's in the locked door at the end of the fridge? Does that one giant tub actually contain the frozen remains of Terezi's girlfriend's latest murder? So many questions.

You emerge from the freezer room with three large tubs balanced on top of each other. The dude, still sitting at the counter, looks up as you kick the door shut behind you. A quick glance around the room tells you that his clothes have been hung onto the radiators in an attempt to dry them off. You make a mental note to kick up the heat when you next pass the thermostat; poor guy must be freezing his ass off. The register is thankfully still in one piece and turned off, and you can't see any evidence of stolen furniture.

“okay,” you say, dumping the tubs onto the counter then grabbing the scoop and a glass from the disorganised counter behind you, “That room is completely full of tubs, but only half of them are labelled. I wouldn't eat stuff out of the unlabelled ones if you paid me a million dollars and a ticket to the fucking moon. Could be body parts, could be rat poison, could be very weird rat poison body part hybrid ice cream. Wouldn't be surprised if there was a blood and candy cherry flavoured tub in there somewhere. Terezi would love that, it'd be so bright red.”

The guy, shit, you still don't know his name, wrinkles his nose at that particularly unappealing idea.

“What non-cannibalistic flavours do you have in store for me then?” He asks, running a hand through his shaggy hair in an attempt to get it into some sort of order. It flops into a slightly messier position, slightly covering his eyes. He brushes it out of his vision with practised efficiency.

You perform an over dramatic gesture (only partially to cover up the fact you were staring at him a little too much) and slide the top tub around so he can see the label, neat teal text printed out and slapped haphazardly onto the side.

"This," you say, "Is apple snout zigzag." You peel back the top of the tub (with some difficulty; you don't think this has ever been opened before. How reassuring) and scoop some out into the glass. It makes a scratchy sound against the linoleum as you slide it over to him.

He looks at the glass. You look at him looking at the glass. He looks up at you. You look back at him. There's a lot of looking going on here, and a lot of silence.

"Can I have a spoon?" he asks, and it sounds a lot like 'are you an idiot'? You grab one out of the drawer and throw it to him. It sails over his shoulder like a metaphor for your ineptitude in social situations, and lands on the floor with a clang. It echoes slightly around the room as you think, in bold and italics, MISTAKE.

"Wow." Is all he says.

"Shut up." You reply, grabbing another spoon and stabbing it viciously into the ice-cream.

He smirks at you, and you can't help your answering smile because it's really hard to focus whilst he's making that face at you. The knowledge that it was you that made him smile, even if it was by being an absolute toolshed, makes you feel kind of fuzzy inside.

This isn't good at all. Fuck.


	2. Chapter 2

He digs the spoon out of the off-putting yellowy green of the ice cream, portioning himself a hefty chunk on the way. You give it a dubious look as he considers the spoon in his grasp, slightly warily. He shoves it into his mouth, regardless of whatever judgement he's made.

A few seconds later he hums loudly, in happiness, you assume.

"This is good" he says, around the chunk of melting ice cream in his mouth.

You frown. "Really?"

"Yeah," he says, "you should try some."

You frown harder "No way dude, I'm not putting that nauseating concoction anywhere near my mouth. I need it for the pleasure of eating actual food like pizza and Doritos, and chugging down as much aj as possible without drowning myself. I don't want to melt off my tongue and not be able to enjoy eating anymore, how much of a fucking travesty would that be?"

He rolls his eyes at you."Stop being an insufferable weakling for five seconds, if you can even manage that, and agree to eat the fucking ice cream"

You wrinkle your nose and consider. You've made a point of not going anywhere near any of Terezi's home-made shit, in case she accidentally dropped in something poisonous (intentionally or not) and you end up puking out your guts. He rolls his eyes at you, and takes another scoop of the ice cream. He holds it out to you.

"C'mon," he says, "you can't consider yourself a proper ice cream vendor unless you try your wares." You open your mouth to say that of course you don't consider yourself a proper ice cream vendor, you're just a collage kid trying to earn some money doing shitty night shifts, but close it before you start rambling about the state of your life.

"No." you say forcefully.

He arches a thick eyebrow, the movement somehow managing to look elegant in a sarcastic kind of way.

"No?" he repeats.

"Woah, has this room suddenly gained a weird sort of echo? That's what I said, dude, no."

He wiggles the spoon at you. "scared?"

You are slightly afraid of what Terezi could have put in that, but you aren't going to say that out loud. Even though he ate some and hasn't keeled over dead yet doesn't mean that his insides aren't being slowly melted by a horrifying acid mix.

You never know.

You make a 'psssh' noise. "Nah, man."

He starts to make a weird sound, which after a few moments you discern to be a poor imitation of a chicken clucking. You stare at him. He makes scaredy-cat chicken noises back at you  
"I'm not afraid of eating ice cream you assho-" he drowns you out with chicken noises, grinning at the face you give him. Out of frustration, you grab the spoon and stuff the whole thing into your mouth, just to show him. The flavour that hits your tongue is not unpleasant at all, in fact, its pretty nic- oh my god. You make a choking noise, and the guy starts laughing. 

Christ on a fucking tricycle, what is in this? It tastes like you just inhaled an entire vat of that nasty cough syrup that says "lemon flavoured" on the front, but really tastes of washing up liquid and ash. Your face scrunches up like you just licked the inside of a toilet filled with lemon bleach, which is actually a pretty accurate description of the horror that just befell you, holy shit-nibbling fuck. You sit there, probably making the most dreadful and unattractive faces humanly possible, whilst listening to the guy laughing at you, so hard that he's gasping in wheezy little breaths. You stand up abruptly and go to get a glass of water.

"Eaugh." you say as you fill a glass, which only makes him laugh harder. You take a gulp, so hasty that you forget to turn off the tap. The water doesn't do much to help your situation but spread the ghastly flavour around the inside of your mouth like some kind of soap, so you turn off the tap and wipe your mouth on the back of your hand. You stare over at the guy. he'd just started to calm down, but the expression you send at him sets him off again, face cracking into a huge grin. You stride over and poke a finger right into his personal space. He laughs even harder, the corners of his eyes scrunching up into little wrinkles that are adorable in an inexplicable and unexplainable way.

"Why." you ask him.

He tries to suppress his laughter but ends up snorting unattractively and that just worsens the issue. your own face breaks into a grin at that, despite yourself. 

"Oh my god, your face" he gasps, "Fucking priceless. It was worth the pain of eating it myself, Jesus, it was so worth it."

You make a smecking noise, attempting to wipe the last foul dregs of the ice-cream from your palette. How did he manage to keep a straight enough face to convince you to eat it whilst dealing with it himself?

"I feel like I just sucked off lemongrab" you say. He offers you a smile that is not even remotely apologetic. He gestures to the other tubs.

"Are you interested in trying any of the others?" you make a show out of shuddering dramatically, earning you another chuckle, and shake your head.

"No way, you couldn't pay me to even poke it with a ten foot pole." He nods with pursed lips. 

"I think I may have over estimated how good a distraction strange ice-cream would make," he says, "It was definitely... an experience. Not one I'd like to repeat in the next thousand years, that's for fucking sure." You laugh at the disgust on his face.

“Tricking you into eating some was seriously the highlight of my week, though.” he adds.

"I have to say, you must have some fucking strength of character to keep so straight faced whilst dealing with the lemon flavoured atomic bomb detonating in your mouth, let alone make stupid-ass chicken noises at me."

He grins. You grin back at him.

"Okay, I'm going to get us some proper ice cream to cleanse our mouths of that unholy crap," you decide. "some of the real good shit." He snorts, intentionally this time. 

"And what would qualify as 'good shit'?" he asks.

You grab two sundae glasses from the cupboard and plonk them onto the opposite side of the bar, where all the sauces and sprinkles are, before sweeping all three of the unholy tubs back into the ice-encrusted corner of the freezer where they belong.

"Y'know, the classics; apple, rocky road, cherry."

"I know about as much about ice cream as I know about particle physics, which is, spoiler: not a fucking lot, and even despite that I am aware of the fact that apple, rocky road, and cherry are definitely *not* the three classic ice cream flavours, you shitstick." He says, sounding incredulous.

You walk back out of the freezer room holding three different tubs.

"I can see your reasoning, there," you say, grabbing a scoop from the shelf as you walk past, "but have you considered this: those flavours are the best ones."

"The 'classic' status isn't given because they're the best, fuckwit, its because they're popular and some of the first to be invented."

Your shoulders lift in a shrug. "They're popular with me." you tell him. He makes a frustrated noise. You make the sundaes as quickly as possible, before the silence stops being Companionable and heads on over to Awkward. You give him an extra scoop of cherry because it's definitely the best flavour, even Terezi agrees with you on that. You feel kind of guilty, like you're betraying apple juice (what the fuck, brain. You reckon even Rose wouldn't be able to figure out what that stems from) but to be fair, you can't make proper ice-cream out of actual apples, and the flavouring they use is good, but just not the same.

He asked for all the toppings earlier, but you decide not to do that because that is a dreadful idea. instead you add sprinkles, fudge sauce, and these tiny chocolate hearts that are absolutely delicious. You also stick two extra wafers in his, because you know he hates them, and you're feeling vindictive after the lemon thing.

You stick a spoon into each of the ice creams, put them on the bar, and drag a stool over so you can sit with him. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> one update left on this, probably going to be posted in a couple of days - it's been written, i'm just checking for spelling and grammar errors. also sorry for the year long pause (yikes)

**Author's Note:**

> This is a repost of an old story I'm rewriting, stay tuned for the next couple of chapters. Hope you enjoyed :)


End file.
